Danny Bowien On His Winning Outfit, Upcoming Book

Last night, Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese took home the prize for Rising Star Chef at the James Beard Awards, but he also turned up decked out enough to compete with Chicago chef (and JBF winner) Stephanie Izard for best shoes.

On his win? "[I'm] overwhelmed and extremely happy and relieved," he told us after his win. "It's a huge step, honestly. We started this a couple of years ago and I wouldn't be able to do it without the people who work with me. I'm a small part of this machine and it's definitely a win on all fronts."

But of course, everyone was asking about his outfit; he did tell The Daily Meal at Chef's Night Out on Sunday that he bought a new suit for this occasion. The threads? A suit from Dries Van Noten, shirt from Raf Simons, and Jordan 11 shoes. "Michael Jordan, he wanted a shoe that you could play basketball in and also go to press conferences in," he told us. "I've wanted these shoes for 15 years so I bought them."

And the hair? "I've had it like this for a couple of weeks and I was going to dye it back, but then I got this suit so I was like, I'm just going to leave it," he told us. Word on the street is even Martha Stewart was impressed.

As for what's next for the bicoastal chef? "We've been working on a book for a while under Anthony Bourdain's imprint," he told us, referring to the cookbook with Lucky Peach editor-in-chief Chris Ying. "It's a little bit of everything, it's going to be narrative cooking, it's definitely going to cover a lot of ground," Bowien said. "We want it to be different but we're still writing it." He says it might be out in 2014, so keep your eyes peeled.